Eye witness testimony

• What are the two types of misleading information?

  Leading questions

  Post-event discussion
• What is a leading question?


  Questions that suggest a desired answer
• What is post-event discussion?


  Information given after an event with potential to influence the memory of it
• Who did the research for EWT?

  Loftus and Palmer
• What did Loftus and Palmer do?


  Shows Ps traffic collisions and then asked, “how fast were the cars going when they….

  • Bumped
  • Smashed
  • Hit
  • Collided

  into each other?”
• What did Loftus and Palmer find?

  ‘Smashed’ - Ps said 40mph

  ’Contacted’ - Ps said 31mph
• What did Loftus and Palmer conclude?

  EWT may be altered depending on how the questions are asked
• What are the explanations for why peoples EWT is altered?

  • Respons—bias factors - misleading information may have influenced the answer but didn’t lead to a false memory
  • Altered memories - some critical words will change perception of event
• What did Loftus and Palmer do in their second experiment?


  Repeated the experiment then asked Ps a week later if they saw broken glass (there wasn’t any)
• What did Loftus find in her second experiment?


  Ps who were asked the ’smahed’ question were more likely to report broken glass
• What did Loftus conclude in her second experiment?


  Memory is easily distorted by questioning technique
• What are the strengths of Loftus and Palmers study?

  • Lab experiment so control over confounding variables
  • Taught us to not ask leading questions
  • Applications - the Devlin report
• What are the weaknesses of Loftus and Palmers experiment?

  • Lacks ecological validity - video
  • Demand characteristics
  • Students used in experiment so unrepresentative sample